ON FEBRUARY 27, the European Union’s ninth parliament passed the Nature Restoration Law, committing member states to restoring at least 20 percent of “degraded” marine and terrestrial ecosystems by 2030. The law passed by 329–275 votes (with twenty-four abstentions), reflecting Europe’s ideological balance of power over the previous five years: mostly centrist, with a soft spot for the environment.
That soft spot just hardened. Europeans have elected a new parliament and, as expected, far-right politicians posted dramatic gains. They now occupy almost a quarter of the tenth parliament’s 720 seats: not enough to run the show, but sufficient to block any legislation they’re against—like the Nature Restoration Law.
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France, Italy, and Germany are three of the countries where the far right just did best, with a collective jump from thirty-seven to sixty-nine seats in the new EU. But immigration isn’t the only grievance fuelling their success. Another is the perceived cost of ecological protection. Meloni holds the EU’s aggressive decarbonization plans in the same regard as illegal immigrants. Le Pen has promised to take down France’s wind turbines and cancel all subsidies for renewable energy if elected. Support for Germany’s AfD is strongest in the country’s coal-producing region, where plans to phase out coal by 2038 (and possibly sooner) are about as welcome as the carbon tax in Alberta.
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Article URL : https://thewalrus.ca/far-right-environment/